


You're Not the Truth

by winethroughwater



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hilda's makeover, part 2 trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-06 08:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16828831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: Hilda's makeover is a success.  The date that follows, not so much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hacklesacademy (ladyvivien)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyvivien/gifts), [Thegaygumballmachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegaygumballmachine/gifts).



> Praise Satan for that new trailer. I took hacklesacademy's bait after Thegaybumballmachine's wonderful "Strange Magic" and gave Hilda's makeover a go.

Satan save them from her sister’s sartorial choices.

A hint of fur. An accent of leopard. Those can be quite chic. 

Still, Zelda can’t help but smile. Hilda does nothing by halves.

She’s magicked her hair to make it longer than it has been in years. And when, at their niece’s enthusiastic prodding, Hilda twirls and reveals the dress under the coat, there’s enough of that lovely skin that seems to always be sun-kissed despite being perennially hidden beneath cardigans that Zelda’s mouth suddenly goes dry. 

The doorbell rings and at least the man is punctual--and not wearing that hideous vampire costume.

It’s odd that Zelda had pictured it that way.

“Just one more bite for the road.” Hilda nibbles again on the cookie she’d pulled from the handkerchief in her pocket earlier. 

She’d always been a nervous eater.

Sabrina bumps into Hilda’s shoulder and whispers, “I told you. You don’t need that, Auntie.”

“Right.” 

The cookie’s tossed onto the sideboard and forgotten, but Hilda’s gotten crumbs in her lip gloss and Zelda is about to call her over and wipe it off but _he_ leans forward first.

“You’ve got a bit,” he swipes his thumb shyly over the corner of Hilda’s lower lip. “Just right here.”

Hilda blushes and grins.

There is something about him that makes Zelda’s skin crawl. She clenches her fingers around the banister and considers how long it’s been since she’s seen Hilda this happy--much less felt that happy herself. 

*************************************************************

Sabrina and Nick--off to a winter formal at the Academy--and Cerberus are already out the door when Hilda calls back, “Night, Zelds. Don’t wait up,” and giggles.

*************************************************************

She isn’t waiting up. 

She just can’t find anything to occupy her mind for more than a few minutes at a time. Not watching television or praying or reading to the baby or balancing the books for the mortuary.

She’d even been restless enough to take a bite of the cookie her sister had left lying about as she paced through the foyer nursing a finger or two of whiskey. Hilda’s lips had left a red crescent behind.

On an unrelated note, Zelda thinks it is time to pay a visit to Riverdale and work off some of this frustration she’s feeling since the abrupt dissolution of her “sessions” with Father Blackwood. She’s in the mood for something, _someone_ very different. Voluptuous blondes aren’t that hard to come by. Long blonde hair that she could wrap around her fists. Full lips and wide, laughing eyes, well, those are nothing a little glamour can’t take care of.

The front door opens and slams.

“Sabri-” she starts out of habit, but it isn’t Sabrina who’s come home in a dramatic huff; it’s Hilda who throws her coat at the rack and misses, running off into the kitchen, sobbing.

Hilda can take care of herself. Zelda has seen to that.

But if that man has even attempted something untoward . . . Zelda will end him. Without the benefit of the Cain pit.

*************************************************************

Zelda kneels down beside her sister. Hilda’s face is buried in her hands at the table.

“What happened?”

Zelda brushes the hair back from Hilda’s face when she doesn’t answer.

“He left me sitting there,” she answers finally. “Just didn’t come back.”

Hilda’s face is a mess of runny mascara and smudged lipstick.

“What’s so bloody wrong with me, Zelds?”

She may well have to kill him after all. After she takes Hilda upstairs and shows her all the things that are so very right about her.

Presently, she cups Hilda’s face in her hand and says, “ _Nothing_. You’re as close to perfect as there is in this world.”

Hilda’s eyes blink in confusion. Zelda imagines hers does the same. 

That’s the kind of thing she thought, but never, never said.

The statement hangs between them.

Until there’s the pop of magic and Sabrina’s panicked face.

Her disheveled projection looks at them.

“ _Werewolves_?! Are they real?” 

Zelda sighs. That’s what had been bothering her about him.

“We’re on our way,” she says, far more calmly than she feels.

Sabrina is gone but Hilda is still sat in her chair.

Zelda squeezes her shoulder.

“Sister, get that hideous coat back on. And gather all the wolfsbane you can find.”

There’s an antique pistol and silver bullets locked in a drawer in the office that Zelda heads off to collect. 

“Be glad he skipped out on the check, Hilda,” she calls.

If he puts up a fight, she might get to kill him after all.


	2. Chapter 2

“We can’t just leave him here.” Hilda plants her fists on her hips. “He’s defenseless . . . _now_.”

“I fail to see how his safekeeping is _our_ responsibility.” Zelda squares her shoulders. “He nearly killed Sabrina.”

“I think I held my own.”

“That’s beside the point,” Zelda snaps at her niece.

“No one was ever cursed with lycanthropy that didn’t deserve it.”

All three Spellman women look at Nicholas, but it’s Hilda who all but yells, “And no women ever burned who weren’t witches.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes as if the tone surprised even her. “If you’ll help me get him back to the store, I’ll wait there with him until morning.”

“Absolutely not.”

And that was Zelda’s final word on the matter.

**********************************************

“Ambrose!” Zelda yells as soon as the front door is open. “Make sure the lock on that cage in the basement works.”

“Getting back in the dating scene then too, are you?”

As soon as he steps into the foyer and sees the form levitating between his aunts and cousin, he freezes.

“Oh.”

Zelda rolls her eyes. 

“Not my date. Your Aunt Hilda’s.”

“You’re kidding.”

He grins.

**********************************************

“You _read_ about them. But you never _see_ them,” Ambrose marvels. “Could I just dissect--”

“Be my guest.”

“No.”

**********************************************

“Thank you, Nicholas.” Sabrina’s new boy really is an improvement on the other one. He’s fixed them tea. “We aren’t exactly at our best tonight.”

She glances at the scratches along Sabrina’s cheekbone, the leaves stuck in Hilda’s hair—she’d even got a run in her stockings.

“I don’t know.” Nick looks around the table and smiles. “I’d say you were all pretty impressive. Backwards and in heels.”

“ _What_?” Sabrina asks.

“Ginger Rogers. She did everything Fred Astaire did except ‘backwards and in high heels.’”

Sabrina pulls his arm tighter around her shoulder.

“I like that.”

**********************************************

“I should go check on him.”

“And I’ll go check on Hilda.”

**********************************************

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Clothes.”

“Thanks.”

“So you’re a werewolf.”

“And you’re a witch.”

“Yeah.”

Zelda doesn’t want to hear any more but she does catch him later when Hilda has said her goodbyes and disappeared into the house.

“If you hurt my sister, in any way, I will wear you as my new winter coat.” 

“Hilda understands what--”

Zelda takes a step forward. He takes one back.

“You’re mistaking me for the nice sister.”

**********************************************

“I’m in the wrong room.”

Zelda looks up from her vanity to see Hilda standing in the middle of her room. 

There’s so many ways she could respond. 

“You’ve also had lipstick on your teeth since we got home.”

She’s surprised that is what she went with.

Hilda’s eyes widen.

She may scream or if she becomes hysterical, Zelda will slap her--

She snorts and laughs, brings both hands up over her face before flopping down onto the bed that used to be hers with a groan.

“You stole a baby. I’m dating a werewolf.”

Hilda’s voice is muffled by the arm flung over her face but Zelda hears the present tense all too clearly.

**********************************************

Weeks later, Hilda’s kept the hair and makeup, albeit toned down, but gone back to the florals—and her _job_ with _Cee_.

“Here, hold the baby.”

Zelda fumbles to drop her cigarette into her tea to make room for the sudden lapful of baby.

“I have something to tell you, Zelda.” Hilda pauses and brushes what looks like crumbs off her dress, seems somehow emboldened by the act. “I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.”

Hence the small human shield, Zelda thinks.

“Cee’s selling the shop and going back west to try to find a cure for his curse.”

So this was it, finally.

“You’re going with him.”

“I’m buying the bookshop.”

They talk over each other.

“I’m not--”

“You’ve bought--”

Ridiculous.

“Enough,” Zelda holds up a palm. “You bought that horrible little shop. With our money.”

She knows she’s burying the lead. 

“You’ve always said we needed to diversify for the future.”

Hilda smiles, but it’s forced, nervous.

Zelda stands and deposits the baby into her basket.

“Don’t put her down.”

“Death and decaf.” Zelda smiles down at the baby who’s blowing a bubble of spit. “What all great dynasties are built on.”

She turns her attention to her sister, draws her arms across her chest, and wishes she hadn’t put her cigarette out.

“And you’ll be happy with that,” she asks. “With your room and your shop and your life?”

“Not entirely.”

Zelda’s surprised when Hilda takes a step forward.

“If there was someone who thought I was ‘as close to perfect as there is in this world’—“

Hilda raises up on tiptoe.

“I’m going to ruin your lipstick,” Zelda warns.

“That’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clock shop. Coffee shop. Bookstore/coffee shop. Hilda buys shops. I obviously marathoned OG Sabrina over Thanksgiving break.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re not actually supposed to smoke in here, Ms. Spellman.”

Zelda will give it to this one of Sabrina’s friends. Susie Putnam has guts.

Susie isn’t intimidating enough for Zelda to put out a freshly-lit cigarette, however.

“There’s a sign.”

Zelda follows Susie’s gaze behind her to a tin sign of a vampire on a beach. Smoke rises from his chest to spell out, “NO SMOKING.”

“I’ll be sure to take it down.”

Susie’s gone in a sigh and the scuff of Converse on linoleum. 

Zelda has to scoot across one of those ridiculous red vinyl benches--Hilda would not agree to get rid of them--to reach the tacky thing but she’s pried up one corner while holding her cigarette in the other hand, when her name echoes through the shop.

Hilda appears from the storeroom, followed closely by Susie. 

“I told you,” Hilda scolds. “You can’t smoke in here. Especially not right next to the books.”

“And I told you I won’t smoke in the alley like so much rough trade.”

She yanks on the sign and it comes away with a chunk of plaster, leaving a small but very visible hole in the wall. 

“It’s still an improvement.”

She’s disappointed when Hilda’s in no mood to play. 

Her sister just says, “Sabrina,” and from somewhere on the other side of the store, their niece’s voice answers, “Adding it to the list, Auntie Hilda.”

_The list_. 

If Zelda could get her hands on that damned clipboard . . .

***************************************

“Rough trade? Like--”

“You don’t have a lot of it in Greendale, dear.”

***************************************

“You’ve been sitting here pretending to read that paper for the last hour. Are you going to help at all?”

Zelda wants this endeavor to be successful. She truly does. It means so much to Hilda, Hilda who is clearly in her element surrounded by books and baked-goods and _people_. She’s proving that this might not have been such a ludicrous decision after all.

Zelda folds the paper and stares across the booth at her sister.

Frankly Hilda’s become a bit of a tyrant. A tyrant whose frock and apron clash appallingly, whose hair is falling out of what Sabrina called a scrunchy. A tyrant who smells of lemon-scented cleaner.

It’s annoyingly, devastatingly sexy, and with their current situation at home, there’s very little she can do about it except cross her legs and pretend to read a newspaper.

Hilda’s foot bumps hers under the table. Her nose wrinkles just a bit and Zelda knows the contact was no accident.

Zelda leans in across the table.

Hilda wets her lips.

It's all Zelda can do not to smirk as she slowly asks, “What is it that you’d like me to do . . . _exactly_?” 

Hilda leans forward, lowers her own voice: “ _Honestly_?”

“ _Yes_.”

***************************************

“And now I think, I’ve wasted all this time. Reading _this_?” 

The one called Ros shoves a paperback into Zelda’s hand.

“When I could have been reading Zadie Smith or Margaret Atwood.”

She pauses long enough to right her glasses and grab another book from the box.

“It’s just an AU _Twilight_ fanfic with the names changed.”

Zelda has thought of at least twenty-seven ways she could kill her sister with items currently in view.

***************************************

“How are things going?” 

Hilda’s tone is cheery but her eyes say she is expecting the worst. 

And well she should after earlier. 

There will come a day, Satan willing a day _soon_ , when Zelda is not observing self-imposed, kissing-only, keep-your-hands-on-her-waist-or-face-and-nowhere-else-so you-don’t-scare-your-virgin-sister-and-ruin-your-lives-by-ravishing-her celibacy and she’ll make Hilda pay. While she is on that subject--

“Did you know this book is about a boy who was adopted by a family of sadomasochism aficionados?”

Hilda gets the strangest look on her face.

“I did not know that, no.”

_Odd_ . Because she is certain Hilda had spent several nights reading these _Shades_ books and turning furiously red.

***************************************

Zelda flips the novel closed after a few chapters. She scans the blurb on the back. Everyone, including the publisher, was grossly misrepresenting the contents of this book.

“Drivel.”

***************************************

“I ship it,” Ros admits.

Susie grins. “I thought I was the only one.”

Sabrina drops the box of pizza on the table, catching the tail end of the conversation.

“Do I need to clear a weekend for a marathon?”

Her friends look a little horrified.

“ _What_? How bad could it be?”

“It’s your aunts.” 

“Sorry, Sabrina,” Susie says. “It’s silly.”

“ _Please_.” Sabrina glances over her shoulder at her aunts and lowers her voice. “That’s my OTP you’re talking about . . . but only in the most general of talking terms--no speculating about anything in detail.”

***************************************

The sun has set but they are finished.

Finally.

After nearly a week of work, Hilda has declared the shop “ready” for its grand re-opening tomorrow. 

Since that moment—half an hour ago--Hilda has been caught in a dreamy bubble, her elbows propped on the counter, chin in hand, watching Sabrina and her friends. 

So much contentment makes Zelda anxious. She leans against the counter, back to the store.

“It’s dangerous for all of them—but especially Sabrina--that’s she’s told them we’re witches.”

“But look how _happy_ she is.”

If only that were all that mattered.

“Honesty has some benefits.” Hilda’s statement is obviously directed at her, and when she adds, “Wouldn’t you agree, sister?” her accent clips the words in that way that makes Zelda’s stomach flip.

Those frustrating benefits, Zelda thinks, that she has not had the _benefit_ of for many hours.

Zelda tilts her chin, lets her gaze drift to Hilda’s mouth, then squarely into her eyes.

“ _Honestly_?”

Hilda’s palms smack the counter, her eyes roll heavenward.

“I knew you wouldn’t just let it go.”

A chorus of giggles erupts from the table at Hilda’s raised voice.

Zelda looks over her shoulder to glare at them.

_“They’ve_ actually helped,” Hilda whispers. “And we only have to pay them in pizza.”

***************************************

“Night, Aunties.”

“You don’t want me to come tuck you in?” 

You’d think Sabrina was still the size of the baby in her arms the way Hilda carries on sometimes.

“Ahh--” 

That sound always proceeds a very good excuse from Sabrina.

“I’m not going to bed. Got to get Ambrose to help me with some homework. Could be an all-nighter.”

Her niece is making for a swift getaway when Hilda calls, “Wait a minute, miss. Why didn’t you do that earlier today?”

“We were busy. I wanted everything to be perfect for tomorrow.”

Even Zelda will admit that Sabrina’s smile and sugary-sweet tone are effective. Especially since she’s enough Hilda’s niece that she likely means every word.

Hilda looks to the end of the table, to her, as she always does when someone needs to be the “bad guy.”

Zelda shrugs.

“Perhaps the two of you should have put it on the list.”

***************************************

Dressed for bed, Zelda softly closes her door behind her. 

Hilda does the same.

“You know you will have to talk to her about putting her studies before working with you at that shop.”

“I will.”

“See that you do.”

It takes about three steps to put her directly in front of Hilda--and an extraordinary amount of willpower not to press her against the door, especially when Hilda’s tongue slides past her teeth.

***************************************

Since Hilda had kissed her in the kitchen, kissing Hilda has quickly become Zelda’s favorite part of the day. 

Hilda’s mouth still tastes of toothpaste when she finds her at the stove in the morning before Sabrina and Ambrose have woken up.

The sofa in the den had been a grave miscalculation, as was anytime spent alone together without some other purpose. On the sofa, it was too easy to get caught up in how soft Hilda was under her. She’s not sure how they went from sitting to reclining. But she’d had to dig her hands between the cushions on either side of Hilda or they would have been at her breasts or up her dress. Thankfully, her fingers had closed around something small and oddly shaped.

A missing puzzle piece.

“This would be the piece that you swore was not in the box,” she’d said. “A ‘manufacturing error.’”

“Now you wish you hadn’t thrown the rest of it in the fire,” Hilda had teased.

Here in the hallway before bed may be the worst part of her day. 

If the frustration had been bad before when Hilda was just a hypothetical, it’s near intolerable now that she’s so tangible.

She is absolutely determined that they should go slow, however; hence the hands to herself rule, which while it has led to an infuriating amount of her own hands beneath her gown alone in her bed, has also delivered Hilda safely behind her own door each night.

She will not have Hilda for the first time on the kitchen counter or against a door.

It will be in _their_ room. In _her_ bed. Because Hilda is coming to her. 

She’ll light candles and scatter rose petals on the damned bed, because, although she drives her mad, Hilda deserves all the romantic frippery she can imagine. 

Her teeth graze Hilda’s lower lip. 

It’s her sister’s gasp and the way her own traitorous hips hitch forward that sets her to untangling Hilda’s hands from her hair. To smoothing out the bright pink fabric right above the curve of Hilda’s hips that she’d had a death grip on seconds ago and muttering something about a big day tomorrow and getting some rest.

“Is there some reason you still don’t want me?”

***************************************

If she is honest with herself, she’s never had much self-control where her sister is concerned. 

“ _Hilda_ . . . please open your door.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I want you.”

She could have stopped there--with her fingers framing Hilda’s face and her body flush with hers against the back of the door.

But Hilda’s lips part in surprise and her eyes are still cloudy with an uncertainty that stings Zelda’s own.

“I--I have wanted you since you were too young to have.” 

There’d been a time, lifetimes ago, that she’d thought _maybe_. Maybe after Hilda’s dark baptism, if her sister embraced even the slightest bit of carnality, showed the least interest in exploring her sexuality the way most young witches do.

Just once and this wayward lust would have worked itself out of her system.

But it had been left to fester over thousands of mornings and nights, a lifetime of mourning one loss after the other, another of reshaping their lives to fill the space. They’d even raised a child together, for Satan’s sake.

And now, _now_ she suddenly needs Hilda to promise her thousands more.

“You--”

Because Hilda is Hilda, Zelda doesn’t have to finish the question.

“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you.”

*********************************************************

The silly fuchsia robe is gone. The gown has been yanked unceremoniously over Hilda’s head and thrown to the floor. Her hands are finally full of Hilda’s breasts and she’s made the most marvelous discovery: the beauty mark at the base of Hilda’s throat has a twin directly between the curve of her breasts.

Hilda’s fingers are fussing with the buttons holding her robe closed. Taking said robe off, sliding her arms out of the lace sleeves, would mean moving her hands and that won’t be happening anytime soon. Not with her fingertips rolling against such rosy peaks, not with her palms committing their weight to memory.

A frustrated sound starts in Hilda’s throat. Zelda has almost found it with her mouth when Hilda gives voice to that frustration.

“For once, will you _not_ be insufferable?”

*********************************************************

Zelda’s fingers undo the last button, but Hilda’s shove it from her shoulders.

*********************************************************

Hilda’s fingers against her spine loosen something in Zelda’s mouth. A torrent of romantic inanity is flowing out of her.

It would be mortifying if Hilda weren’t talking too.

“ _Things_ aren’t quite what they were then . . . obviously you know that because . . . seen each other . . . loads of times since then . . . but not like _this_.”

It would be mortifying if Hilda’s hands weren’t currently, desperately, bunching up the satin of her gown somewhere around her hips.

“We used to bathe together . . . not in this context, of course . . . not for a very long time. I would not be opposed to doing that again.”

Zelda steps back; Hilda sways as if to follow.

“I’m babbling,” Hilda apologizes. It's punctuated with a half-giggle she can’t manage to suppress.

Zelda tugs the coppery gown up and over her head as gracefully as she can manage, let’s it fall to the floor as she finds herself saying something she never thought she would.

“Don’t stop.” 

Her voice isn’t as commanding as she had intended; however, she holds her back straight as she walks the few feet to sit on the edge of Hilda’s new bed and holds her hand out.

“When I’ve imagined this, you babble.”

“Oh.”

Hilda doesn’t move except to flex her fingers against her thighs. 

Zelda drops her hand and smiles.

It’s her turn to answer a question before it’s asked.

“More often than I’m going to admit.”

When Hilda grins and says, “Me too,” in that rare conspiratorial way, Zelda regrets being so adamantly anti-against-the-door. She should have dropped to her knees right there.

She doesn’t have long to second guess herself as Hilda is soon standing in front of her and she can brush her fingers up the backs of her thighs and watch the gooseflesh creep across Hilda’s stomach.

She can trace where silk becomes skin right along the curve of Hilda’s ass when she moves her fingers higher.

She can lean forward and kiss that beauty mark again.

Her fingers can finally hook into the waistband of Hilda’s knickers and tug. 

“When you think about it, what are we doing?”

Hilda’s eyes are closed when she answers: “Everything.”

“We might not get to all of that tonight,” she teases.

“Good thing we have lots of nights.”

*********************************************************

“You’ll tell me if there’s something you don’t like? If anything makes you uncomfortable.”

Zelda’s aware of what an outrageous hypocrite she is being. Even she can’t convince herself that all the maiming and the bludgeoning had just been foreplay.

Really she is buying time because now that she has Hilda naked and willing and laid out for the taking, she doesn’t know where to start.

It strikes her as incredibly odd that she should be more nervous this time than she had been _her_ first time.

“ _Zel_ -da.”

She isn’t sure if the _way_ Hilda says her name is unconscious or a deliberate act of seduction. Either way, the effect is the same: the two syllables of her name lapping between her legs.

Her fingers trail down Hilda’s inner thigh--it twitches in a way that makes Zelda’s throat constrict--to brush the backs of her fingers against her center. Just that makes Hilda gasp.

She may not have given Hilda candles and rose petals, but she can ensure that _this_ rivals what makes those heroines in her books call out for their false god.

*********************************************************

Obviously when their Dark Lord created her, He’d seen fit to allot her with a finite amount of self-control and discipline, which she’d apparently burned through in the decades and weeks leading up to this moment.

Surely that’s the only reason she can’t concentrate on what she’s doing to Hilda. Her finger is curled inside her, trying to find _that_ place. Hilda is warm and wet and tight and all the other delicious adjectives Zelda can think of, all of which she had told Hilda and, despite the face Hilda had made, she’d felt her clench around her finger in response. 

Her thumb is rubbing taut circles against her clit but she keeps losing the rhythm of it.

Her traitorous mind is razor focused on Hilda’s fingers between _her_ thighs. Hilda’s inexperienced fingers which have found _that_ place and are fucking her to distraction.

No less than three times she has had to remind herself to move her own hand. 

Obviously letting Hilda touch her had been the latest in a continuing series of miscalculations.

She also should not have straddled Hilda’s thigh and rocked against her the way she had. It had only given Hilda easier access and ideas--such distracting ideas--that she would happily luxuriate in _later_. But not now, not this time.

Everything that could possibly send her right to the edge, Hilda is doing.

When Hilda draws her fingers completely out and suddenly buries them inside her again, she can only brace _both_ hands against Hilda’s shoulders.

When Hilda moves from beneath her without warning, is over her and pressing her face-down into the mattress, she can only say, “Yes,” against the sheets.

When her sister’s fingers return, relentless, Zelda can only move in counterpoint, as always.

*********************************************************

“My Zelda.” 

Hilda’s voice, all wonder and awe, is so incongruous with what she is doing that it's almost enough to make Zelda come.

There’s breath then tongue then teeth against the nape of her neck. 

_Please_.

Glorious, white hot pain fills her mind as Hilda bites just shy of drawing blood. 

Infinite colors explode behind her eyes.

*********************************************************

She doesn’t have the presence of mind to question why Hilda is pulling at her shoulder, but she lets herself be rolled onto her back, will move however, where ever, her sister wants.

“Do that again.”

Staring up into Hilda’s hazel eyes gone so dark, Zelda just nods and cooperates.

Hilda’s hand is back at her; her own hand joins Hilda’s this time, because if she presses just a fraction harder and just right there--

*********************************************************

Her eyes do not sting after sex.

Though her lashes are wet and she wants to keep her face buried in the crook of Hilda’s neck. 

She moves just long enough to rasp an apology against Hilda’s ear. 

She’s sorry for having all the self control of a teenage warlock. For once again being unforgivably selfish--twice if she is being literal.

And she does not indulge in any post-coital nonsense.

Though she is laying here and letting Hilda stroke her hair with fingers that reek of her own sex, offering inarticulate responses to all the sweet things Hilda is saying.

She can’t explain what happened. Hilda might as well have been reading her mind.

Damn her for ruining all--

_Surely she hadn’t_. 

She’d always been so reluctant to use _that_ gift, the one that even Zelda did not possess.

“ _Hilda_.”

When she raises up on her elbow, the look on her sister’s face says it all.

“That’s such a dirty trick, sister.” But one that had so many possibilities in the future.

Zelda, however, does not need to be a mind-reader to know what Hilda means when she says, “Be cross later. Do _something_ now.”

*********************************************************

When Hilda comes for the first time at a touch besides her own, its against her mouth and for that Zelda will never apologize.

********************************************************

Zelda wakes to blonde hair tickling her nose and one arm dead asleep.

She smirks--and pulls her arm away, eliciting a sleep-slurred protest from Hilda.

Obviously they hadn’t gotten to _everything_ last night _,_ but they had made an impressive start--and could probably cross another one off the list if Hilda would only wake up.

What happens next occurs in the proverbial blur.

Hilda stretches. Hilda screams. Hilda looks at her with such shocking accusation that it sends her scrambling away across the bed.

“What did you do to me?” 

The disgust writ across Hilda’s face is worse than anything she ever imagined.

“I thought—”

As she takes her sister in, naked and drawn up against the headboard the way she is, the cause of Hilda’s outburst becomes apparent.

She feels relief followed by the familiar burn of anger.

“That’s not in the least amusing, Hilda.”

“ _I_ haven’t done this. _You_ did.” Hilda gestures frantically between them. “For the mind reading.”

“I most certainly did not.”

How dare Hilda think she would be so, so _juvenile_. 

“Just take the glamour off. I won’t be mad.”

Hilda’s face says this is a lie, but Zelda is also not lying. 

“I told you—”

In tandem, their palms stretch out between them; their voices fall into a long-practiced rhythm: “Ad inceptum tuum verum forma.”

Nothing changes.

If there were a spell, it would have--

“Zelda--”

Her eyes meet Hilda’s then fall to her sister’s impossibly, enormously, swollen abdomen. 

Zelda reaches out to rest an unsteady hand against the curve of flesh separating her from her sister. She presses her fingers down carefully.

When a solid form rolls under her palm, she snatches her hand away.

“Something moved in there!”

“‘In _there_ ?’ In _me_!”

“It’s obviously not what it looks like.” 

Because it looks like Hilda is about thirteen months pregnant.

“I know that,” Hilda hisses in that run-together whisper that makes Zelda nervous at even the best of times. “Mother gave us the same talk.”

“Did you eat something?”

“ _Like what_? A watermelon seed?”

Before she can tell Hilda to stop being absurd, or slap her if she becomes hysterical, two familiar voices can clearly be heard from the hallway.

“Stay there. I’ll go.”

Zelda throws on the first thing she lays hands on and, with one long look back at Hilda--who’s entirely focused on the mystery of her distended midsection--closes the door behind her.

She sees Ambrose grab Sabrina by the elbow.

“I told you.”

Sabrina’s eyes widen at her.

“Oh. So it was _that_ kind of scream? Because it didn’t sound--”

“Your Aunt Hilda is--”

She’s honestly at a loss as to how to explain any of this to herself, much less to her niece.

“You don’t have to explain.” Sabrina grins and her hand tugs on the sleeve of her robe. 

Only it is not _her_ robe. It is, however, a positively nauseating shade of pink.

“Alright there, Aunt Zee?” 

Ambrose’s forehead has knit in concern.

“No.” 

Of that she is certain. 

As certain as she is that she did not impregnate her sister last night. In no realm, magical or mortal, this one or the next, is that possible.

The damned cat is yowling at her feet, hissing at the door, and she’s about to kick him just to shut him up when the door opens and Hilda steps out, belly first, her _state_ obvious even in that floral tent of a nightgown. 

“Have either of you done anything that would have caused this?”

Sabrina’s face suddenly matches her hair.

“I’m going to fail demonology.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be part of a longer (and final) chapter but holiday travels happen. Please forgive any silly errors. I’m working from my phone today. Next chapter will be the last one.

“And you must have been . . . I’m going to say ‘receptive’ —because I can’t think of a less psychologically scarring term — at that exact time.”

As members of a particularly gifted family of witches, everyone around the table possesses the ability to sink through the floor at will.

As members of a family being forced to discuss sexual intercourse, especially amongst their own ranks, around their breakfast table, each of them looks seconds away from using that ability.

As Ambrose is talking, Zelda is scanning the pages of the text for herself. Next to the implausibly long Germanic name formally bestowed on this type of demon, her niece’s curly script has written “cookoo demon??,” in purple ink no less.

“Couldn’t say what time it was.” Hilda peeks through the fingers that had been laced across her forehead in her direction. “ _Zeld_? No?”

Of course, she didn’t know what the damned time had been. She’d been busy.

Even though the book spread out in front of her is older than the four of them combined, she shoves it carelessly away when her eye catches an etching of a heavily pregnant woman with a grinning demon halfway to being delivered. There was a similar picture of a cow, only the demon had apparently not waited to be born.

Zelda’s eyes and ire fix on Sabrina.

“Yes. Your utter disregard of any consequences for your actions _ever_ seems the most likely explanation.”

Tears roll down the girl’s cheeks. Her lip trembles.

“It’s alright,” Hilda consoles, reaching to pat Sabrina’s hand. “Now that we know what it is--”

“ _No_.” Zelda slams her fists down on the table and stands. “It’s not alright! How many times does she have to set a demon loose in the house before it’s not alright? And this time—”

This time something world altering had happened last night and now it had devolved into a surreal farce.

Hilda pulls Sabrina to her side until they are all but sharing the same chair. Her hand draws Sabrina’s head to her shoulder and holds it there.

She looks at Zelda and hisses, “ _Blood pressure_.”

Zelda’s halfway to taking Hilda’s pulse--horrified that she’d been so focused on what had happened that she hadn’t even considered the toll this would be taking on Hilda’s health--when her sister clarifies: “ _Yours_.”

Hilda’s attention shifts immediately back to the oh-so-grown-up witch who would no doubt be in her aunt’s lap if there were room.

“Sabrina . . . opossum.” The old endearment earns a hint of a smile. “Stop crying.” Hilda wipes at their niece’s cheeks with her thumbs. “You know it always makes me start too.”

Hilda does look on the verge of tears as Sabrina nods and sniffles.

“Right.” Hilda looks to Zelda, to Ambrose, and back to Sabrina. “We’re all going to pitch in and fix this. Like we always do.”

“There’s a list of what we need in the book,” Sabrina offers.

“Some of it's pretty obscure, cuz.”

“Start going through the cabinets and collecting what we do have. I may have some things in the solarium that haven’t been cut yet.”

Neither of the young people move until Zelda snaps, “Do as your Aunt Hilda says.”

**********************

The inventory would go faster if Zelda helped, of course, but this is the first modicum of privacy they’ve had.

She needs to apologize for her hysterical reaction this morning--and for an apparently ill-timed orgasm last night. 

She needs to beg Hilda not to take this as some sort of sign from Satan himself.

Apologizing and begging have never been her strengths.

She isn’t given the opportunity to stumble her way through either.

A wail carries through the house.

They both look toward the ceiling.

“I’m surprised the poor little bean slept this long through all the shouting.”

**********************

The infant has worked herself into a red-faced fury the likes of which Zelda’s rarely seen from her.

She envies her the freedom of such a cathartic fit.

“Oh, hush,” she admonishes softly. “Your morning can’t possibly have been as bad as mine.”

**********************

Freshly diapered and resplendent in a little houndstooth onesie, the baby’s settled into her familiar cry to be fed by the time they reach the kitchen and the warm bottle Hilda is holding at the ready.

“Now,” Zelda says as the baby latches on greedily. “All is right in your world.”

“The shop opens in less than two hours.”

Zelda doesn’t realize the statement requires any response. She carries on feeding the baby until she glances up and sees Hilda’s eyebrows set with stubborn purpose.

“Have you lost all leave of your senses? You can’t possibly go.”

“I’m not going.”

“At least that’s—”

“You are.”

“I am not.”

The baby’s face crumples as she spits the nipple from her mouth, obviously preparing to shriek.

“Today is the reopening.” Hilda’s thumb catches the milk as it rolls down the baby’s chin, her voice gone a soothing sing-song. “You will be there to make sure it's grand.”

**********************

“Who could that possibly be?”

Someone was leaning on the doorbell.

“It’s probably Mary Wardwell. I had Sabrina call her.”

“Why? That meddling woman is the last thing we need this morning.”

“She was a damned sight more helpful with the devouring worm situation than you were. Give me the baby and go answer the assing door.”

Shear shock propels her out of the room.

Hilda had cursed, however tame, and in front of the baby no less.

**********************

Sabrina’s teacher is leaning against the doorway in what is obviously meant to be an effortlessly seductive way.

“I must confess,” she drawls. “I imagined you would be rather good. I obviously had _no_ idea.”

Zelda closes the door on her glossy red grin.

How much _had_ Sabrina told her on the phone? 

Zelda pinches the bridge of her nose—probably not as much as she had just confirmed.

She doesn’t apologize or even invite her in, just holds the door open, and notices, not for the first time, that Mary Wardwell moves as if she isn't quite sure how to wear her body.

“I trust you’ll be discreet.”

“The very soul.”

**********************

“Oh, Hilda!”

Zelda couldn’t say when this woman and her sister had moved to a first-name basis, but she did not like it.

“I'm sorry. I’ll have to forgo the old cliche. You’re not glowing; you look positively ashen.”

“Thanks.”

“Nasty little things.”

For a second Zelda thinks Mary’s talking about the baby in Hilda’s arms but then she drops her hand as pretty as you please to Hilda’s belly.

“Really more curious than malevolent, though. Prone to gnawing if they get bored.”

Hilda’s eyes go wide.

“I _do_ love what you’ve done with your hair.”

That woman’s fingers are in Hilda’s hair now.

She has taken far too many liberties.

Mary pulls a face as her fingers catch on a tangle.

“Must have been some night.”

“That’s it.”

“We’ve asked her here to help,” Hilda warns.

“I’ll take care of her as if she were my very own sister.”

Zelda’s hand is poised to send Mary flying into the next room without benefit of the doorway--when Hilda laughs.

Her hand falls and her fist unclenches. 

When had she gone so soft?

“I’m done now. Promise.” The other witch holds up three fingers in oath.

Zelda is certain she was never one of those cookie peddling pests so the gesture is meaningless.

“Will _you_ please get dressed and into town?” Hilda sounds just this side of tears.

The Wardwell woman smiles at Zelda.

Zelda turns on her heel. She’s unsure when she lost all control of her own house.

She hears, “always the tightly-wound ones” and “now where would I find a live doe in estrus?” before she reaches the stairs.

**********************

“Everything is in hand here.”

Statement, question, accusation—since she seems superfluous to the activity in the kitchen.

“Susie and Ros are meeting you there,” Sabrina says, still avoiding direct eye contact.

“ _Wonderful_.”

**********************

“If you have questions, ask Susie.”

She’s being seen off to work. 

Hilda actually straightens the lapels of her jacket as they stand in the doorway.

No small part of her wonders if they should check the seal on Batibat’s jar.

“Hilda, this is—”

“A hiccup.”

She was going to say _a nightmare_ but the idea that this is just a temporary state of chaos is much more appealing.

They haven’t talked about last night at all, unless you count the mortifying conversation around the table, not that Zelda would normally want to talk about their feelings, but what happened between them needs to be acknowledged in some way.

When she can find her voice again, she gets only as far as, “Last night,” before Hilda says, “I know,” and smiles in that way that somehow makes her eyes even brighter.

Zelda puts a steadying hand to the doorframe.

She’s not sure she’ll ever recover her center of gravity. Or if she really wants to.

“Aunt Hilda, where is the angelica?” Sabrina yells from somewhere behind them.

Ambrose, coming down the stairs two at a time, calls, “I’ve got the rope.”

“I’m sure they intend to use that on the deer,” Zelda says and drops a quick kiss to Hilda’s lips. She should at least get something for playing the role of 1950’s husband off to work. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Ms. Spellman?”

With a roll of her eyes, Zelda stubs her cigarette out into the desk drawer next to some brightly colored paper clips and slams it shut.

“What can I do for you?”

“Is Hilda okay? She sounded strange on the phone this morning. And, from what Sabrina’s told us, I didn’t think witches got sick.”

“She’ll be fine.” Susie’s devotion to Hilda is admirable, but Zelda’s in no mood to explain witch-healthcare or exactly what has Hilda at home today. “Just a temporary malady.”

“That’s good.”

Susie’s slow to leave and Zelda finds herself saying, “Thank you,” and clarifying, “For your concern.”

“You probably want to find a better place to hide those cigarette butts.”

**********************

She makes it two hours—and four cigarettes—before she rings the house.

Just when it seems no one is going to answer, Sabrina picks up, sounding winded.

“What’s going on there? How is Hilda?”

“We’re still trying to get everything ready. We don’t want anything to go wrong once we start.”

“Well, I would hope not. If anything should go wrong, contact me immediately. I don’t know how I got exiled to this dreadful shop when I should be at home. How _is_ your Aunt Hilda?”

“Aunt Hilda is being Aunt Hilda so even if she wasn’t okay, she wouldn’t tell me.”

“She is obnoxious that way.”

“Auntie Zee, I just want to say how sorry I am again.”

“We’ll talk about it later, Sabrina.”

“It’s just, if you knew how long I’d wanted the two of you to be together, I think you’d understand how sorry I am.”

“What is it you and your friends say, ‘Same’?”

**********************

Zelda watches Harvey flirt with Ros.

Zelda watches Susie watch Harvey flirt with Ros.

Zelda knows that the dishy Nicholas Scratch is just a distraction for Sabrina. Her heart still lies with the boy flirting with one of her best friends.

This does not bode well for any of them. She foresees a tsunami of teen angst and heartbreak, most of which will occur beneath her roof for some reason.

Still, it does help pass the time.

**********************

The next time she phones the house she gets a busy signal.

Fifteen minutes later, no one answers.

**********************

“Hilda?”

A hand waves over the back of the sofa.

“Down here.”

Her sister is propped on a mountain of throw pillows but not looking at all rested or comfortable. A tawdry paperback lays open across her belly--which Zelda would swear is even larger than it was a few hours ago.

Somehow, while she had been at the shop where time seemed to move at the speed of molasses, absolutely no progress had been made here at home.

“Why are you alone?”

“I’m not alone.”

Hilda nods at the sleeping baby in the basket next to the sofa.

The baby as a buffer is not going to work today, though Zelda’s face softens unconsciously.

“While I agree that she is certainly more advanced than most babies, I don’t think she’s going to be much help in an emergency.”

“Good company though.” Hilda’s expression changes suddenly. She makes an awkward start at turning in Zelda’s direction. “Why are you here instead of the shop? Has something happened? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

Zelda’s hands draw naturally to her hips. 

“Honestly, you’d think I was a complete incompetent the way you talk.”

Hilda’s expression implies she thinks that is a fair assessment of her sister’s mortal business acumen.

“People come in. Ros sales them coffee and pastries. Susie sales them books. People leave.”

“And what are you doing?”

“My role is strictly managerial.” And she would not be derailed from her train of thought. “Where is everyone? I left on the condition that you were with a house full of people who were supposed to be taking care of you and _that_.”

Pointing at her sister in the way she just did was another of those miscalculations she had been making lately.

“Do you know how hard it is to find rue and copal this time of year? Of course, you don’t. Sabrina’s gone to see if Dezmelda has any—and she was very stubborn about leaving. You’d have been proud.”

“It is the absolute least she can do since all of this is her fault.”

“She didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“And the others? Where are they?”

“Ambrose is just upstairs, making sure he has the incantations correctly translated. He could be down here in a flash if I needed him. I think Mary’s still in the woods looking for a deer. I don’t feel good about that part.”

“I don’t trust her either.”

“No, about the deer.”

Zelda rolls her eyes.

“Of course.”

“There are three pychopomps at that window now.”

“I know.”

“Go.” Hilda drums her fingers against her protruding abdomen. “I’m just going to lie here and incubate.”

Zelda absently rubs at the back of her neck, reluctant to pull herself back to her body waiting in Hilda’s little office (where she’d wedged a chair against the doorknob so she wouldn’t be disturbed). Her fingers brush a welp that’s probably only the size of a nickel but feels much larger. It stings in a way that makes her pull the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You should let me heal that later.”

Hilda’s voice is soft, laced with a tinge of embarrassment and maybe something else.

When Zelda leans closer, over the back of the sofa, she can see the color rising in Hilda’s cheeks, her pupils dilating.

Despite everything, this is still there between them, waiting.

“Absolutely not.” 

She’ll hold on to this for as long as possible. 

She could be convinced—once all this demon nonsense is sorted—to let Hilda try to kiss it better.

She’s about to say so when Hilda manages, with some effort, to stretch herself upward until her face is just out of reach.

“I’d kiss you if you were actually here.”

Astral-projection is not without its disadvantages.

“Something to look forward to later,” Zelda whispers and opens her eyes to Hilda’s office, her fingers still brushing over her lips.

**********************

She’ll be hearing that damned bell in her sleep—the loss of which Ros and Susie had all but sworn would ensure the collapse of the business the last time she had threatened to throw it out in the street.

“If you could read, you’d know that we are closed. And you would go away.”

She’d told those two to lock the door fifteen minutes ago, the moment the store was officially closed. 

“I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go if that’s the sort of customer service you’ve offered all day.”

Her head snaps up at the sound of her sister’s voice.

Hilda sweeps her hands in front of herself theatrically—“Ta-da!”—as Zelda rounds the counter.

Hilda looks normal.

“We have a pet deer living in the garden for the next few weeks. Hope that’s okay.”

Hilda sounds normal.

“How did things go here? You didn’t hex anyone?”

Instead of answering, Zelda is busy moving a silly mustard cardigan out of her way.

“I’m fine.”

The dress is the purple and orange number that Hilda seems to have had forever; it’s soft enough that Zelda can make out every curve she had memorized last night.

Hilda feels normal.

“See,” Hilda laughs. “All flat. Well, as flat as it ever was.”

Zelda’s eyes start to burn. If something had gone wrong. If she had lost her now.

“Zelda.” Hilda’s finger traces her jaw. “My love.”

“Do not try to handle me the way you do Sabrina.”

***************

She dabs at her eyes with the embroidered handkerchief Hilda had pulled from her pocket, trying not to ruin her makeup and look even more pathetic, as her sister sees Susie and Ros to the door.

Zelda refuses to partake in the group hug.

****************

“They will require payment other than pizza this time.”

“I figured that would be the case.”

“I’ve hired your snitch, to work here, after school.”

_“You_ did?” Her fingers fuss with the curl of Zelda’s hair against her chest. “I thought you would be more of a _silent_ partner.”

“Don’t worry. I will sooner volunteer at the Lutheran soup kitchen down the street than set foot in here again.”

**********************

Zelda hates the way these benches make the backs of her legs clammy.

“How do you feel? Physically?”

“I’m right as rain. Poor deer is miserable though.”

She strokes Hilda’s wrist with her thumb where their hands are joined across the table.

“You’ve named it and we’ll never be rid of it.”

“She’s called Daphne.”

**********************

“This will sound silly to you, and I know I will regret even saying it, but I always thought I’d feel different. _After.”_

“You weren’t expecting today’s level of different.”

**********************

“Come with me.”

Zelda hates the way _she_ has to scoot and maneuver out of these booths, but she quite likes watching Hilda do the same.

“I had a plan.”

She glances over her shoulder at Hilda, trailing behind her, as they make their way behind the counter.

“Something more _traditionally_ romantic.”

She holds the door to the storeroom open for Hilda to pass by. 

“But you went and ruined it in the hallway.”

“I did?”

She guides Hilda into the hobbit-hole of an office, hand on the small of her back.

“You know what they say about best laid plans.”

Hilda inhales and Zelda knows she can smell the smoke that’s clouded the office most of the day. She’ll let Hilda discover her improvised ashtray another day when she is not here.

She nods to the desk behind Hilda.

“Up you go.”

“ _Here_?”

“My last act as manager.”

_“Zeld_.” Hilda loops her arms around Zelda’s neck. “You stopped being the manager when I walked back through the door.”

**********************

While Hilda shrugs off her cardigan, Zelda works on divesting herself of her suit jacket, down to the camisole beneath.

She watches Hilda wriggle out of her tights while her own fingers work the zipper on her skirt.

Finally she can step between Hilda’s thighs and pull her against her chest.

There’s no demonic baby bump between them.

“Nice to be able to do this again.”

“You have no idea.”

**********************

“On our desk,” Zelda admits against Hilda’s clavicle. “One of the things I’ve thought about. Frequently.”

“Not as nice as ours at home.”

Zelda pauses. Maybe she shouldn’t have thrown all those plans out the window just yet.

Hilda catches her chin in her fingers, draws her eyes to meet her own.

“If you stop touching me and apologize, you’ll be the one who wakes up in the Cain pit tomorrow.”

There’s that tyrant tone again that makes Zelda shiver and drop right to her knees.

**********************

“Kitchen . . . always wanted.”

“Can be arranged . . . soon.”

**********************

Later at home, in their room, in her bed, she strokes her fingers through Hilda’s hair and for the first time notices that it is bobbed off just above her shoulders.

“Your hair is shorter again.”

“Easier.”

She feels Hilda’s head start to rise from her chest.

Before Hilda can ask if she preferred it the other way, Zelda says, “I love it.”


End file.
